More on Linda McMahon and the ‘1970s’ Bankruptcy (Bankruptcies?)

With admirable wit and grace, Lloyd Grove of The Daily Beast now tweets that he will respond to my critique of his unfiltered fumble of Linda McMahon’s bankruptcy story “as soon as I recover my equilibrium from that chair you hit me on the head with.”

Meanwhile, here are some of the spaces in the bankruptcy timeline. (Thanks to David Bixenspan, the wrestling fan who also coordinates and writes for a blog called Cageside Seats.)

One day in the early 1970s, Linda McMahon’s father-in-law, Vincent J. McMahon, “got a call from a private investigator, looking for the Vince McMahon who’d run up a trail of bad debts,” according to a book about wrestling by writer Shaun Assael.

“As the story goes,” the Assael account continues, “Vincent listened carefully, then realized the investigator was talking about his son. That was when he decided it was better to keep the kid close rather than let him run down the family’s name.”

Bixenspan adds: “Vince started working for his father as a ring announcer in ’69 and advanced to host/play by play announcer as well as promoting a town in Maine in ’71. Shane was born on January 15, 1970 in Gaithersburg, MD so that much is true. Vince’s bio on the WWE corporate site says he
started working for his dad ‘full time’ in ’72.”

Again, the Evel Knievel Snake River Canyon Jump was in 1974. The Muhammad Ali fight with Antonio Inoki in Japan was in 1976.

I hold no brief for Richard Blumenthal. But if it’s such a big deal that on several occasions he might have tried to trick audiences into thinking he’d served “in” the Vietnam War rather than in the Marine Reserves “during” the Vietnam War, maybe it behooves us to nail down the celebrated and glorious story of Linda McMahon’s bankruptcy.

Irv Muchnick

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